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Thursday, December 13, 2018

Machine Quilting En Provence

My UFO goal for December is to finish En Provence which was the Quiltville mystery started in November 2016. I have my Brother 1600 machine set up for machine quilting and other vintage machines set up for piecing projects. That way I can work on the quilting a little bit at a time. I am having some pain in my right shoulder so shorter quilting sessions are a good idea.

I decided to quilt two small circles in the middle of all the blocks. The smallest circle is traced around the base of a spool of Aurifil thread, and the larger circle is the size of a canning jar lid. As I come to each block, I trace the lines with an "air erase" marker and stitch it right away as the lines disappear fairly quickly!This is how the quilting design is turning out - 2 circles in the centre, and arcing lines around the other block shapes are stitched in blue, green and yellow threads. I like changing thread colours frequently. I put the green thread in and stitched all the green blocks in each of the 9 alternate blocks. Then I put the blue thread in and quilted the 4 blue triangles in the 9 blocks. Yellow thread was last and was stitched in the yellow squares and the white diamond shapes. It's a lot of stopping and starting but that's okay with me. It's looking even better than I had hoped!

Next I will be quilting the light spaces around the pink stars. I procrastinated that decision because the stars extend into the borders and I haven't decided on a border design yet. Feathers? Stippling? Grid?I am hoping to have the machine quilting finished by Christmas so that I can enjoy hand stitching the binding during quiet family times over the holiday, and maybe even finish the quilt in 2018!

Your quilting looks great! I quilt on my domestic too, and even though it's slower, there's a lot of freedom in choosing your quilting designs. I'm currently quilting my Winterville quilt and am on my 5th thread color change with one more to go. Brenda, The Quilting Nook

You are doing a great job of quilting, but I am still stuck on the line where you say you love to change thread colors--frequently, even! I do change thread colors as I quilt, but I find it frustrating that I have to keep stopping to do that. I need a bit of your enthusiasm for the process!